WCW: Miranda Richardson

She could be the best-known supporting actress in historical costume movies and TV currently working, definitely in Britain. Miranda Richardson has had a few, good starring roles, but she gets a lot of meaty sidekick parts in films spanning historical periods. And of course she’s done a lot of fantasy and sci-fi (including Rita Skeeter in the Harry Potter films). But I’m going to stick to historical costume here!

Ruth Ellis in Dance with a Stranger (1985)

Based on the life of Ruth Ellis, a convicted murderer and the last woman hanged in Britain in 1955.

Clementine Churchill in Churchill (2017)

Churchill’s wife still looks rather glam.

Miranda Richardson’s next historical drama is The Happy Prince, written and produced by Rupert Everett. Richardson plays Lady Queensbury, mother of Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas, who was Oscar Wilde’s lover.

What’s your favorite historical costume film or TV series with Miranda Richardson?

About the author

A self-described ElderGoth, Trystan has been haunting the internet since the early 1990s. Always passionate about costume, from everyday office wear to outrageous twisted historical creations, she has maintained some of the earliest online costuming-focused resources on the web. Her costuming adventures are chronicled on her website, TrystanCraft. She also ran a popular fashion blog, This Is CorpGoth, dedicated to her “office drag.”

18 Responses

Talented and ellegant but sometimes underrated actress! She made 2 totally different characters in Hallmark’s “Merlin”: the serene and good Lady of the Lake and chaotic & evil fairy Queen Mab, and I didn’t realized till I was older, after having watched the miniseries so many times! Some of Mab’s dresses are really good, by the way, they have teh feeling of a Fairy Queen who lives in 5th century Britain. I remember her as Snow White’s stepmom opposite Kristin Kreuk, there Miranda’s gown had some Late Middle Ages/Renaissance feeling to it, it would have been wonderful if you had included those dresses in this post, but after all, “Merlin” and “Snow White” aren’t period dramas ;)

It’s hard for me to choose a favourite from Ms Richardson’s oeuvre, but for comic relief it’s Queen Elizabeth I in Blackadder II. And her Victoire Duchess of Kent in the Young Victoria is a tour de force. Much better than the whiny one on ITV/PBS Victoria. Her costumes Rock. And I can believe Albert bringing her & Victoria together.
The role I’m probably looking forward to the most is her Lady Douglas in the Happy Prince.
Didn’t know about several of the others are I’ll look for them on HULU & NETFLIX.

Thanks for reminding me of “St. Ives” (or as it’s called in the UK, “All for Love”)! IMDB lists it as drama and romance, but they’ve missed out the comedy, which is really what makes it as I recall. Witty in the vein of “The Importance of Being Earnest”, only sillier. Apparently it’s an adaptation of a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson, but perhaps more importantly, it also stars Richard E. Grant and Jason Isaacs. Definitely worth a watch.

She’s so beautiful – and she really suits that vintage porcelain skin/red lip look. I loved her in all the Blackadders and The Young Victoria, but could never understand why Madame Giry was the only person in Phantom with a French accent, when they were all French!

1) I love love LOVE her in the Hours.
2) I am going to forgive you for your Phantom sacrilege. :-P The the photo is her in her ballet mistress garb–being all perfectly postured and such. The second, and I don’t think that particular shot is in the film (which I may or may not be rewatching at this moment!), but it’s referencing the scene where she tells Raoul all about the Phantom’s past and how she knows him and basically saved his life by hiding him under the opera house. It’s after the masquerade ball and she’s in her own apartment, so she’s sort of off the clock/letting her hair down, in a sense.

Wow, does she never age!? She was in movies before I was born and hardly looks a day older. I think my favorite appearance though was when she played the Queen of Heart’s in a TV movie version of Alice in Wonderland – I can’t remember who made the movie, but I remember Whoopi Goldberg played the Cheshire Cat…